Asia Leads Global Air Travel While Africa Features in Regional Connectivity Rankings – IATA
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released its 2025 World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), showing continued growth in global passenger traffic, strong demand for premium-class travel and changing fleet trends, while highlighting Africa’s position in the world’s aviation market.
The report, released on Thursday in Geneva, provides comprehensive data on passenger demand, airline operations, aircraft fleets, employment, revenues and costs, drawing on information from 1,315 airlines worldwide, including more than 250 international carriers that contributed detailed operational data.
One of the report’s major findings was the continued recovery and expansion of premium-class travel. International business and first-class passenger numbers rose to 109.7 million in 2025, representing a 4.5 per cent increase over 2024. Premium passengers accounted for 5.5 per cent of all international travellers during the year.
According to IATA, Latin America recorded the fastest growth in premium-class travel, with passenger numbers rising by 22.1 per cent to four million.
Europe remained the world’s largest premium travel market, handling 39.7 million premium passengers, while North America and the Middle East recorded the highest proportion of premium travellers relative to their total passenger traffic, at 10.4 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively.
Although Africa did not feature among the world’s largest passenger markets by country, the continent maintained a significant presence in regional connectivity.
The report identified the Cape Town International Airport-Or Tambo International Airport (Johannesburg) route as Africa’s busiest airport pair in 2025, carrying 3.4 million passengers during the year.
Globally, however, Asia Pacific continued to dominate the list of the world’s busiest airport pairs. The Jeju International Airport-Gimpo International Airport route in South Korea remained the busiest worldwide, serving 13.3 million passengers.
The report noted that all of the world’s ten busiest airport pairs were domestic routes, with only one route outside the Asia Pacific region making the top ten ranking – the Jeddah-Riyadh domestic connection in Saudi Arabia.
Beyond Africa, Bogotá-Medellín emerged as Latin America’s busiest airport pair with 3.5 million passengers, while Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca remained Europe’s busiest route with 2.1 million passengers. Stockholm-Malmö recorded Europe’s fastest-growing airport pair, with passenger numbers increasing by 85 per cent.
In North America, New York’s JFK-Los Angeles remained the busiest domestic route, while JFK-London Heathrow was the region’s busiest international airport pair.
The United States retained its position as the world’s largest passenger aviation market in 2025, recording 890.1 million passengers travelling to and from the country.
Despite retaining the top spot, it posted the slowest growth among the world’s ten largest markets, increasing by only 1.6 per cent compared with 2024.
China remained the second-largest aviation market with 776.1 million passengers, representing a 4.8 per cent increase.
The United Kingdom ranked third with 269.7 million passengers, followed by Spain with 252.7 million, Japan with 223.5 million and India with 218.2 million passengers.
Italy, Germany, France and Türkiye completed the list of the world’s ten largest passenger markets.
IATA also highlighted rapid growth in emerging aviation markets. Kazakhstan recorded one of the strongest performances globally, with passenger traffic surging by 40 per cent to 18.1 million passengers.
Uzbekistan followed with a 16.9 per cent increase to 12.5 million passengers, while Vietnam’s market expanded by 14.8 per cent to 80.9 million passengers.
The report also showed significant changes in global aircraft utilisation as airlines continued modernising their fleets with more fuel-efficient aircraft.
Among widebody aircraft, the Boeing 787 recorded 795,000 flights in 2025, representing a 40.8 per cent increase compared with 2019. Airbus A350 operations more than doubled over the same period, increasing by 117.4 per cent to 434,000 flights.
In contrast, the Airbus A380 continued to decline in usage, operating 90,000 flights in 2025, a 24.4 per cent reduction compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Narrowbody aircraft remained the backbone of global airline operations. Boeing 737 aircraft operated 10.8 million flights in 2025, making them the world’s most frequently used aircraft type.
The Airbus A320 followed with 8.7 million flights, while the Airbus A321 recorded 4.2 million flights, reflecting strong growth of 61.6 per cent since 2019.
The Airbus A220 posted the fastest long-term growth among major aircraft types, with flight numbers rising by more than 770 per cent between 2019 and 2025, reflecting its growing popularity among airlines replacing older regional aircraft.
Overall, the latest WATS report paints a picture of a global aviation industry that continued to expand in 2025, driven by increasing passenger demand, stronger premium travel, modern fleet renewal and sustained regional connectivity.
While Africa remains a relatively smaller market compared with Asia, Europe and North America, the continent’s busiest domestic air corridor between Cape Town and Johannesburg underscores the importance of air transport in supporting regional mobility and economic integration.
